I'm thinking about buying a flintlock rifle. For the price, the Pedersoli guns seem to be very attractive for production rifles. I'm not new to black powder, but I am new to flintlocks. I keep reading that the quality of the lock can make or break ones flintlock experience. Are the Pedersoli locks any good? If not, what can be done to improve them?

Also, I'm specifically looking at the Pedersoli jaeger if anyone would care to comment on it.

In general, Pedersoli quality is excellent, and this includes their locks.

But, like any generalization, there are exceptions.

Pedersoli is very faithful to the original design of the products they are replicating. In at least one case, that resulted in a lock that faithfully duplicated the faults of the original: the Harper's Ferry pistol. Fortunately, they saw the light and corrected the problem after a while, and later production models lived up to Pedersoli's reputation for quality.

Bottom line: current production locks are high quality. Be careful buying used, however.

I had a Pedersoli flintlock a few years back. I was not impressed. Many misfires and I had to spend some time pulling bullets from the barrel with a jag. The frizzen put out minimal sparks and the touchhole was all wrong. Then I had a custom flintlock made with a top of the line Chambers lock and a properly drilled touchhole, what a difference!

My experience with Pedersoli is identical with Bishop Creek.
I finally sold the gun out of frustration. The buyer spent more on a new lock than the purchase price of the gun before it would shot reliably.

I just bought a brand new 50 caliber,flintlock, Pedersoli Kentucky rifle. I have never seen another flint lock so I can't compare.
My rifle with a fresh flint got me kicked out of the house because my wife thought all the sparks were going to catch her carpet on fire. Outside, I used the first flint with just powder in the pan and towards the end of the flints useful life I was getting a few failures. I put in a new flint for my first trip to the range.
At the range I got 100% performance. I am using Goex fffg in the bore and in the pan. I am concerned about the delay between the hammer falling and the discharge. I reduced powder charges in the pan to around a grain, which helped but even at it's fastest discharge I could still hear the flint striking the frizzen. I am contemplating opening the touchhole liner to a 1/16th inch. Even with the slow ignition I was getting a nice group, and am sure I could hunt game with this gun.

On advise to open the touch hole to 1/16th, I did and now the gun discharges noticably quicker. Still slower than my model 700, but I am beginning to get some confidence with the gun now. I am considering taking it next week on a nylgi and hog hunt.

Flint-locks are very sophisticated devices and all parts must be in harmony for good performance.
A factory made lock like the Ped. needs to be tuned for any kind of real performance. Not hard for someone with a little experience.
The difficult part is hardening the frizzen. Again not real difficult after you learn how. But almost all factory made flint-locks do have soft frizzens. Out of the box do not expect good sparking, if any at all.
However, what Ped. ships is not always consistent. You might get lucky and get one that actually sparks.

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